But who was San Fermin really?

All this celebrating is going on thanks to a saint called San Fermín. How come he has ended up being the patron saint for all this partying? It seems he was the son of the local head man when Pamplona was just another city belonging to the great Roman Empire back in the third century A.D. or thereabouts. A french Bishop -San Saturnino- came down to bring the Good News to the local heathens. He did such a good job on San Fermín that this guy decided to go up to France – to Toulouse to do some more learning and to become a bishop. Then he returned to help out with the good work that San Saturnino had started and then after a period he went back up to France to spread the word around the area of Amiens.

However, it seems he ran up against the local powers-to-be up there and got himself tortured and beheaded for his trouble. The body is still up there in the local Cathedral, but some parts of it are spread round as valuable relics. Three such relics eventually made their way to Pamplona back in the middle ages and they made the guy very popular round these parts.

It’s a bit ironic really that, with the curriculum that he’s got, this saint should be the excuse for the annual Baccal that has become so famous round the world. He would probably turn in his grave if he only knew. But let’s be fair, for many people it is something more than just “a damn good party”. And so there is a pretty classy procession on his feastday – the 7th of July. And maybe he returns his thanks when he gives us that special protection during the Bull-Running when the people talk about the “capotico (the cape) of San Fermín” when there have been some lucky escapes made.

Some people take his life story with a pinch of salt. – How much is fiction? That’s up to you to decide …

Pray to the Saint

Tradition tells us that a priest named Honesto arrived in Roman Pamplona sent by Saint Saturnino to evangelize the town, and that Senator Firmo was converted to Christianity along with his family. Fermin, his son, was taught by Honesto, and when he was 17 years old, he began to preach in the surrounding area. Later, when he was 24 years old, he was confirmed as a bishop by Honorato, the prelate of Toulouse. At 31 years of age, Fermín left to preach the Gospel in Gaul: at first in Aquitaine, Auvergne and Anjou, and finally in Armens, where he succeeded in achieving a great many conversions and where he was imprisoned. On September 25, he suffered martyrdom by beheading.

His body, which was buried in secret by some Christians, was found, amazingly enough, centuries later, on January 13, 615, in the bishopric of San Salvio. It was moved to a nearby city where some magnificent Gothic reliefs from the 15th century, located in the space behind the altar of the cathedral where his remains are conserved.

Did San Fermín exist?

The apocryphal Saint. Many people will have heard tell of San Fermin, and at least recognize the name, thanks to the Fiestas that are held each year in Pamplona in his honor. However, there are few people who realize that his history, like that of many other saints, is based on legend.

According to many scholars there is no historical authenticity to be found for his life. The legend around San Fermin apparently arose around about the eleventh century in the French town of Amiens, then the capital of the region of Picardy. From there, it eventually reached the city of Pamplona about one century later, where this saint became a figure of devotion for the local population.

Just recently there has been a serious study made by the historian Roldan Jimeno, son of an equally illustrious local historian, Jimeno Jurio, which has only served to confirm the lack of any real foundation to the story of the saint. Earlier studies made in 1970 by various historians and investigators from Pamplona and Amiens had already reached the same conclusion while making independent studies on the saint. They all conclude that there is no real historical base at all to the saint. In spite of this, both in Amiens and in Pamplona, the devotion to the saint is maintained by the citizens of both towns. And of course, the name has taken on worldwide fame thanks to the annual fiestas celebrated in his name each year in Pamplona.

The legend of Amiens

The legend relates that there was a senator, Firmus, who lived in the time of the Roman emperors, Diocleciano and Maximiano, and who was the governor of the region. This senator had a son whom he called Fermin. This source comes from one of the earliest documents on the saint, written by a man called Jacobo de Voragine, under the title “The Golden Legend” and which dates from 1254. According to this legend, Firmus handed over his son to be educated under the tutelage of the priest, Honesto. This man sent Fermin to Tolosa to receive an education and he asked the local archbishop of that place to ordain him in order to make him a missionary of the Christian faith to convert the pagans.

This was done and Fermin came back to Pamplona to preach the faith having already been made a bishop. He remained there until the age of 31 before crossing over into France to preach to the heathens. He first went to Agen then on to the region of Beauvais and finally arrived at Amiens. Here, he suffered from the persecution of the Roman pagans, but according to the legend, he managed to convert around 3,000 people to Christianity in only 40 days. It seems the local Roman governor was not happy about this and he was arrested and put in jail. Soon after, on the 25th of September he was murdered through having his throat cut and today this date is celebrated as the day of his martyrdom.

This legend written down by Jacobo Voragine comes from the middle ages and from the region of Picardy, whose capital was Amiens, which lies about 150 kilometers from Paris. While there is no exact date to be found it is reckoned that the legend had arisen about a century earlier in this region.
According to the historian Roldan Jimeno, it was normal around that time to “select a foreigner which would give the event a more exotic relevance, as the person responsible for bringing Christianity to the region.” The people of Amiens chose Fermin because he was both a Basque and a Roman at the same time and this would have been an attractive combination in order to satisfy this need to have a person from abroad as their saint. Thus, the legend began and was amplified and altered as time passed from one generation to the next.”

The legend arrived to Pamplona for the first time during the twelfth century, when the archbishop of Pamplona at that time, Pedro de Paris, heard of it and had a relic brought to the Cathedral of Pamplona where it was put on the high alter. As time passed, the cult to the saint spread around the rest of the province. For the people of Pamplona at that time, the idea that they had a saint who it seemed had once been a bishop from their town, was something to be valued. Inevitably, they started to change or adorn the legend to include the christianization of their own town in the 1st century – instead of the 3rd century as the people from Amiens had dated it. Over the following years different scribes enlarged and modified the original legend.

So devotion to the saint continued in the two areas -Amiens and Pamplona, but each with their own version of the legend. In the eighteenth century Miguel Joseph de Maceda produced a Pamplona version of the legend in his manuscript “Sincere Acts”. Some time later when the text reached Amiens it created a polemical argument as to the veracity of the dating, since it stated that San Fermin had lived in the 1st century, while in Amiens it was believed that he had lived in the 3rd century.
Finally, it was decided to combine the two traditional legends in one new text.

Without any historical basis

Arriving to the twentieth century, the librarian of the Cathedral of Pamplona, José Goñi Gaztanbide, in the decade of the seventies, made a study of the origins of the saint. He reached the conclusion that the story of San Fermin was “a legend and quite implausible” as there was no basis of historical facts. Later, the historian, J.M. Jimeno Jurío carried out a penetrating work of investigation which only served to confirm these facts. Some discussion arose on the validity of this study among the academics and other authors also confirmed these conclusions.

The recent thesis made by Roldan Jimeno has also served to collaborate the earlier findings. “One of the key points which helps to confirm that it is all based on legend is the dating of the arrival of Christianity to these areas. In the case of Pamplona Christianization did not take place until the 3rd century, while in Amiens it happened only some centuries later. Moreover, until the 12th century, there is no clear reference made about the saint.” Also the fact that there is no church dedicated to the saint, nor even a hermitage, helps to confirm this fact. “It would not make sense that a city like Pamplona would be without a church named after this saint, had he existed.” In Pamplona the first church dedicated to the saint was only built in the 1950’s in the new suburb of the Milagrosa, and even the first hermitage only dates from the seventeenth century.

In spite of the criteria which came about in the Catholic Church after the Council of Trent and which caused the repudiation of the validity of some saints, there has never been any official estimation made by the Church on this Navarran saint. “There have been several saints which have been declared apocryphal by the Church, such as St. Christopher, for example, and this has not had any excessive consequences. In any case, with local saints such as San Fermin, it would be the responsibility of the local diocese to make a declaration in this respect. Then of course the response of the people would have to be considered.”

At present, the cult to San Fermin continues to exist both in Pamplona and in Amiens for many people, and the Fiestas which are held in his honor in Pamplona each year continues to attract thousands and thousands of visitors from all parts of the world, who even if they don’t know his background, have heard tell of this Patron of Navarra.

The procession in honor of San Fermín goes back for as long as records have existed, so it is likely that the procession is as old as the cult to the saint is, in Pamplona. Jesús Arraiza wrote in his book about the patron saint of Pamplona – “San Fermín patrono” that, although there is no written record, it is likely that the custom of having a procession began around 1187 when the bishop, Pedro de Artajona, brought the first relic of the saint from Amiens and initiated the cult of veneration of this saint in Pamplona.

On the other hand, José María Corella, in his book “Sanfermines de ayer ” (‘Yesterday’s Sanfermines’) points to the existence of graphic testimonials of doubtful origin that there was already a parade of figures which danced in the procession during the middle of the XV century. However, unlike the present-day “zaldikos” (wooden-horsed figures) which form part of the Troupe of the Giants and their entourage – The Comparsa de Gigantes y Cabezudos – the traditional flute or “gaita” was played by the dancers as they danced in their wooden horses and competed with each other to see who could make the best capers.

José María Corella also points out that the first documented reference to the procession of San Fermin dates from 1527, when the annual Sanfermin fiestas were still being celebrated on the 10th of October. At that time, the City Hall councilors were already going to the Cathedral to meet up with the Cathedral Cabildo in order to take part in the procession together and the subsequent religious acts in the church of San Lorenzo, where the saint has been worshipped since time immemorial.

The Chapel of San Fermín

The most important thing about this chapel is that it holds the figure of the saint and here it is kept throughout the year until it is taken out during Sanfermin fiestas. Sources: texts from Juan José Martinena in different publications and a conference given by José Luis Molins, city hall archivist during the cycle of talks “SAN FERMÍN: CULTO, FIESTA and ARQUITECTURA” from the University of Navarra.

San Fermín is a very special saint as both believers and non-believers in the faith approach him, to beg for protection or some similar favor when they participate in the running of the bulls. Ever since the XIV century there has been a special chapel dedicated to this saint. It was originally part of a Gothic church and small in size. During the XVI century, Pamplona city hall, the citizens themselves and people from other parts of Navarra or even from Latin-America, all contributed to the creation of a new chapel and this is the one we still use today. For that reason, the people of Pamplona and Navarra feel it belongs to them in a special way and this belief has been handed down through the generations.

The chapel of San Fermín has been constructed within the parish church of San Lorenzo, located at the very end of Main Street – the Calle mayor – in Pamplona. To enter the chapel it is first necessary to go either through the main door of the church or enter from San Francisco Street which gives access to both temples.

The chapel of San Fermín began to be constructed in 1696 and it was totally completed in 1717. On the seventh of Julio of that same year it was inaugurated. The original architect was Santiago Raón, and his Project was completed by Juan de Alegría and Martín de Zaldúa who kept the baroque style of the original plans. A curious anecdote about the chapel is the lawsuit from the XVIII century involving Pamplona city hall and the members of the church from the parish of San Lorenzo. At one point, the construction of a new temple was being seriously considered by the city hall and it was to be located in what is now the Paseo Sarasate. Plans were drawn up and these can be seen in the Municipal Archives of Pamplona although the Project itself never took off the ground. The architect who drew up the plans was Juan Lorenzo Catalán.

Something which really did take place in the chapel of San Fermín were some urgent repairs, undertaken in 1800. A man called Santos Ochandategui was put in charge of these works by Pamplona city hall and he gave a neoclassic look to the chapel which still remains today. In 1823 after a siege made by the “Cien mil hijos de San Luis” (a rebel army), the lantern of the cupola of the chapel had to be rebuilt after suffering demolition from a bombing made by the rebels.

San Fermín is stored within the chapel at the altar. The original altar was 17 meters high but this was substituted by a smaller one in 1819. The sculptures and reliefs that we can see at present are the work of Anselmo Casanova from a project by Pedro Onofre. The glasswork was made by Mayer in London.

What exactly is “la Corte de San Fermín”?

This is an association which was founded in 1885 in gratitude for favors made by San Fermín, when, according to tradition, the saint prevented several epidemics from breaking out in Pamplona after they had caused grave illnesses in other neighboring regions

The Corte de San Fermín is a religious association set up in 1885 and which currently has some 800 members of both sexes. They have their headquarters in the office of the Parish Church of San Lorenzo, at no.74 Calle Mayor in Pamplona. The parish priest of this church is always the chairman of the board of the Corte and this board also includes a secretary, a treasurer and four members of the board. Their main purpose is to maintain and promote (Christian) devotion to saint San Fermín. At present, this devotion is materialized in actions such as maintaining the upkeep of the relics of San Fermín and in accompanying the figure of the saint in the important celebrations of the saint. In addition, the members would also make their own singular contributions with their own personal actions related to the saint.

The Corte celebrates San Fermín at different dates throughout the year: the second Sunday of January is the festival of the relics which commemorates the removal of these relics from Amiens (France) to Pamplona many hundreds of years ago. On the 6th of July the celebration of the “vísperas“, and on the 7th of July the saint’s day is celebrated with the yearly procession. Here the members of the Board of the Corte and all the members who wish to participate play an important role in the procession and the subsequent religious acts held in the chapel of the saint. On the 14th of July at 11.00 a.m. the “Octava” is celebrated (seven days after the saint’s day celebrations). The City Hall councilors attend this ceremony and this is the closing religious service of the Sanfermin Fiestas.

In addition, in September there is also a big day for San Fermín from the religious point of view. On the 25th of this month the commemoration of the martyrdom of San Fermín is held and an annual novena begins on the 17th of this month which culminates on the 25th. (Nine religious functions)

What to do with historic material?

The archives of the Casa de Misericordia and Pamplona City Archives offer a professional standard of care to donations related to the Sanfermin Fiestas. Two archive centers exist which are interested in conserving and cataloging everything related to Sanfermin. One of these is the Archivo Municipal de Pamplona (City Archives) and the other is the Archivo de la Casa de Misericordia de Pamplona (The governing body of the fiestas). Both institutions accept altruistic donations with the aim of conserving material about the fiestas and they offer a high level of professionalism in their treatment of the material as well as ensuring copyright and safekeeping.

The Archivo Municipal de Pamplona conserves the best photographic material on the fiestas and on the running of the bulls. This is especially so ever since the donations made by the inheritors of material from Zubieta y Retegui or José J. Arazuri. They also keep the best collection of posters and programs from the Sanfermin fiestas. In addition, they have plans and drawings on the chapel of the saint and a register of all the city hall activities related to the fiestas down through the years. At present, the person in charge of this material is Ana Hueso and contact may be made with the archive center here.

Perhaps the other important record office is less well known – that of the Casa de Misericordia de Pamplona, which belongs to the charitable foundation of the Old Folk’s Residence and which is a charitable and non-profit-making entity. Here you can find information that goes back some 300 years and which is related mostly to the bullfights and the running of the bulls. The “Meca”, as this foundation is popularly known as, organizes the running of the bulls and the program of bullfights and for that reason it keeps records such as the posters of the bullfights or the erection of the fencing, etc. Old tickets, programs, photos, etc. can all be found here in their collection. The person responsible for the historic archives is Beatriz Itoiz and contact with the archive may be made here.

Historia del Txupinazo

The first one Chupinazo

In 1931 a local Pamplona man called Etxepare began the custom of firing off an opening rocket to set off the fiestas. This idea was taken up again in 1939 by Joaquin Ilundain and institutionalized in 1941 in the form that we know it today.

Larrion and Pimoulier present the testimony of their friend Javier Alonso who days that he “remembers perfectly well, as well as some of his other friends, how a well-known republican and a great man from Pamplona called Etxepare was responsible for lighting the rocket in 1931, the first year of the Republic and he continued to do so until 1936 when the Civil War broke out. He was a witness of that first “txupinazo” opening rocket and he remembers that “he was dressed in the style of those days, with his dicky bow and straw hat.”

This was the origin of the popular “txupinazo” opening rocket, similar to what we see today where there is a personality chosen to set off that first rocket to start the fiestas. Rockets had been fired off over many years before the 1931 initiative to announce the opening of fiestas- at least since 1901 – but in those years the employees of the fireworks firm – Oroquieta – would set off the rockets without any special symbolic value being given to the action. Etxepare first had the idea of making it a symbolic act in the republican years before the Civil war broke out in 1936 when Etxepare was then promptly executed by firing squad.

In 1939, with the ending of the Civil War, Joaquin Ilundain and Jose Maria Perez Salazar took up the tradition started by Etxepare. In 1949 Ilundain was named assistant Mayor and he continued with the tradition. He proposed to the then Mayor, Jose Garran Mosso, and his council, that the rocket should be sent off from the balcony of the City Hall. Ilundain himself was the first to set off the rocket from there and the tradition has continued uninterrupted since then.

To 1979

Sometime in the 1930s, a neighbor asked if he could light the first rocket’s fuse. This simple event, little by little, gained the approval of the people of Pamplona. Sometime in the 1930s, a neighbor asked if he could light the first rocket’s fuse. In 1939 Joaquin Ilundain, of Pamplona, lighted the fuse announcing Sanfermines and repeated the feat the next year as first lieutenant-mayor.

In 1941 Ilundain suggested to the Town Hall, presided then by Jose Garran Mosso, that the first rocket be shot up from a balcony of this institution, beginning in this way a custom that soon would, along with the running of the bulls, be universally representative of the fiesta of Sanfermin. This ceremony was not even suspended in 1952 when construction work on the actual Town Hall meant that the rocket had to be fired from the balcony of a temporary Town Hall, located in the Art and Music Schools in the Plaza de ]a República Argentina – today known as the Plaza del Vínculo.

Lighting the fuse, which is a matter of pride for anyone from Pamplona, has always fallen to persons linked in some way to the town government, with the exception of Manuel Fraga Iribarne, then minister of Informacion y Turismo (1964).

From 1979

The “Txupinazo” or rocket does not have a very long history compared to the rest of Sanfermin events. The mayor designates the lucky one in charge of firing the “Txupinazo”. In 1979, with the first democratically elected corporation, the mayor, Julian Balduz Calvo, decided that this priviledge would go, each year, to a different political group making up the town government, beginning with the group having the largest number of representatives and continuing on down. This cycle is renewed every four years, coinciding with elections.

In 1991 Mayor Alfredo Jaime Irujo shared the fuse-lighting with Jose Maria Perez Salazar, who, together with Joaquin Ilundain (no longer alive), had suggested that the rocket should be fired from the Plaza Consistorial 50 years before.

History of the Comparsa of Giants and Bigheads on Sanfermin”

According to a rather obscure tradition, during the procession of San Fermín in 1276, three Giants, called, Peru Suziales, Mari Suziales, his wife, and one called Jusef Lukurari (” The Usurer”) – a personification of the popular repulsion against the Jews at that time, – were paraded dancing through the streets.

But the first authentic references to The Giants in San Fermin date from the beginning of the XVII century; in 1607 one Joanes de Azcona is named as being responsible for bringing out the assemblage of Giants along with a minstrel who was responsible for providing the accompanying music. In 1620 it is recorded that a carpenter, Joan de Torrobas, was paid 88 “reales” to mend four Giants. It was the custom around that time to parade Giants in the evenings, after the bullfights, which were adorned with crackers and fireworks,(not unlike the present-day mechanical contrivance of the “Torch Bull” borne by a human) and which were frolicked around the square, before eventually ending up on the bonfire.

This practice of having Giants in the celebrations continued through the greater part of the XVIII century, until in 1780, The King, Carlos III, banned ” the use of dancing Giants for leading any religious processions inside or outside all churches within this Kingdom” (by Royal Decree of tenth of July, 1780) which put a stop to the use of any Giants during the San Fermin celebrations. The Giants which had belonged to the Town Hall disappeared without any further trace while the Giants which belonged to the Cathedral were stored away and forgotten about, until 1813 when they were discovered by a carpenter who revived the old tradition by bringing them out once again into the streets. The response was so enthusiastic that The Town Hall gradually built up their own collection of Giants, along with accompanying figures such as the Zaldikos, Kilikis, and Cabezudos.

The Giants that are presently in use date from 1860 and were made by one Tadeo Amorena, a local painter from Pamplona. He presented a scheme to the Town Hall in March of that year to built four new Giants which would represent the “four corners of the world” and which would be more durable and yet lighter than the old ones. A local poet- one Ignacio Baleztena- couldn’t help but write some caustic lines on the fact that :
“It seems poor Tadeo had never heard tell of The Oceanic Continent”.

The present cabezudos in use were built in 1890 by one Félix Flores. Some of kilikis and zaldikos are from the last century while the rest date from this century.

Historia de la Casa de Misericordia de Pamplona

The “Casa de Misericordia” in Pamplona

The “Casa de Misericordia” in Pamplona exploits the Bullring in order to get Money to help run this old folk’s residence for the poor and the aged. This residence has a special bullfight committee which is responsible for making contracts with the different bull-breeders to take bulls to Pamplona for the Sanfermin bullfights. It also makes contracts with the bullfighters and does all the other work in required in organizing a week of bullfights. It is also in charge of organizing the running of the bulls each morning during the fiestas
According to the bill known as the “Auto de la Ciudad” which was drawn up on the 9th of April, 1706, and which sets down the establishment of an old folk’s home known as the •”Casa de Misericordia”, the principal aim of the establishment was to refuge for the poor of both sexes. From 1793 up to 1980 shelter was also provided for orphan children. At present, the residence holds some five hundred and fifty old folk who are without economic resources or family or suffering from any kind of social isolation. Ever since its origins, it has also tried to provide work and training to the needy. .

These charitable aims have always needed funding and for this reason the establishment from the very beginning had sources of income such as a handkerchief factory (1706-1922), the right to exploit a pelota handball court (1777-1910) and, most importantly of all, the right to manage the annual animal fair during the fiestas of Sanfermin – the Barracas- (1882-2008). And most important of all, the Casa de Misericordia had the right to exploit the bullfighting during the Sanfermin fiestas and to this end it constructed the bullring and organized all the aspects of the bullfighting week held during Sanfermin.

It was Pamplona City Hall which ceded the ground to build the present bullring back in the early nineteen twenties of the past century. The Casa de Misericordia accepted this challenge and ever since then, as the owner of the bullring, it maintains the upkeep of the bullring and organizes the bullfights and the running of the bulls during fiestas. Even the erection of the fencing is the responsibility of the Casa de Misericordia. The Casa gets about ten percent of its total annual income from the bullfights and other events such as the running of the bulls during the fiestas.